First Corinthians 15:50-58

Well, interesting verses out of 1 Corinthians 15. It's interesting because we've really, in the last three weeks, have been answering to some degree the very first question in verse 35. when the question was asked well some would say how are the dead raised and With what kind of a body will they come and so? Today to finish up the chapter We're going to talk a little bit. We'll do some a little bit of review from last Sunday and some of the verses that we talked about.

But the first verse we're gonna look at today is, now I say this, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does perishable inherit imperishable. So Paul says that's an impossibility. And he's been demonstrating that flesh and blood, man, as he is here on the planet, as we all are sitting there and standing today, we can't inherit God's kingdom. And when you take a closer look at this phrase in scripture, kingdom of heaven and kingdom of God, you find out an interesting thing that almost every time the phrase kingdom of heaven is used, it really refers to earthly kingdom. The kingdom of heaven is here. When you see the reference to the kingdom of God, It has a much wider and universal meaning, and it includes as much of earthly things as are germane to it. So the kingdom of God is a much greater thing.

The kingdom of heaven is entered to, if you look at Matthew 5.20, the Lord said, the kingdom of heaven is entered to by exceeding the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees. So that's how you get into that one. The kingdom of God, however, is entered into by new birth, John chapter three.

So when we take a look at some of the verses we talked about last week, we find out, gee, there's some interesting things that are going on. He says, so also is the resurrection of the dead. And we talked about this great word, sown. You know, we talk about burials and all that other stuff.

The Word of God talks about the believer's body as being sown in the ground. And what that means to us is that, well, there's a purpose. You don't sow a seed for no purpose at all. You sow it with an expectant thing to happen later. So when you see these verses, it says a seed or a body is sown perishable.

It's raised an imperishable body. It's sown in dishonor. It's raised in glory. It's sown in weakness. It's raised in power. It's sown a natural body, and we've distinguished some of that. We'll do some more today. It's raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there's also a spiritual body.

But you have to ask yourself, why do bodies have to go through this process? Why do we have to get sown? Why do we have to get buried? Well, some of the reason is explained here. We see that natural bodies are sown, not buried, and we've talked about why that is. Verse 44 tells us that we have a natural body, but the resurrection body is gonna be spiritual.

It's gonna be different. It will be a body which will have the spiritual life of man will predominate in it. Today, the body we have, your soul dominates, your mind, emotion, your will, your feelings, all of those things, they dominate. But this resurrected body we're gonna have will be spiritually dominated, will be occupied more and most with the things of God rather than the things of us. We're occupied with worshiping him, with fellowship with him, with his service, and to a far less degree, we'll be occupied at all with our souls. This body is dominated and controlled by your spirit, the resurrected spirit. We'll be the same body and identity, we'll all know each other. but it'll be changed as to composition and especially the life principle, the thing that animates it.

So it's impossible for us in our present day physical form to enter into any sort of an inheritance of God, placed in the kingdom of God, or let alone even be an inheritor of it. Back in verse 49, Paul says, as we have borne the image of the earthly, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly. It's not merely that corruption does not inherit incorruption, being incompatible, but man in his best estate, in a natural body, he's prideful and sinful. He's not qualified to inherit. Short of resurrection, where there's an intervention of the last Adam, another man, Christ, who is also God, man cannot inherit where God reigns.

Ever think about that? That here's this premise that God says, you're gonna reign with me. My buddy used to say, you know, human beings are a virus on a planet. I used to think, yeah, we probably are. But the word of God says we're gonna reign and inherit God's kingdom.

Short of the resurrection, in Christ, without Christ, that's not gonna happen. But in Christ, we see the power which withdraws the believer completely from death. Impossible without his death, not because we could be so intrinsically quick and forevermore, but because the believer, us, we had been sinners. And like others, and could not otherwise be saved consistent with God's righteousness, his holiness. His truth, His glory. Christ's victory extends even to the living saints, not merely to keep them alive in the world, but to change them at His coming without undergoing the humiliation of death. Some of us, if the Lord comes soon, won't die. And only the power of Christ's resurrection could cause that to happen. Now there are people that think that when the Lord comes to claim his own, like if he came in the next two minutes, we'd all have to die in two minutes. But that's not what the word of God teaches. It teaches that some of us won't die.

This new body that we'll have won't have as a we've said before, won't have blood in it because the life source of the body won't be blood. You know, in this flesh and blood corruptible body we have, you separate the blood from the body, what do you have? You have a dead body. And that's not only true in human beings, it's true in every flesh there is.

But when the Lord Jesus rose from the dead, he didn't have blood in his body, no scabs. He could say to his disciples, put your finger right in there. There's a hole there. Put your hand on my side. Because the resurrected life doesn't need blood to function. It's the resurrected life of Christ that causes the body to function. It's a new life principle that will animate our body. And our bodies will be exactly like the Lord's body.

So it becomes increasingly obvious from the language of verse 50 when he says, now I say this, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does perishable inherit imperishable. So when you think about it, he's talking about the heavenly side of resurrection, the heavenly side, the language has everything to do with the kingdom after, not now. For we, even if you look at prophetic scriptures, you'll see that man in the flesh and blood can pass into and be involved in the kingdom, but they're not gonna inherit it. Therefore, we read in our, need for our being exchanged, even Job said in Job 14, 14, I wait until my change comes.

He knew that much. Notice that God's kingdom is here viewed exclusively on the other side of death, not this side. In accordance with a great theme, earthly things have their place very definitely elsewhere. Here in the reason given, they're not found. The transformation of the resurrected body, now think about this. Some of you guys that are hobbling around like I do.

The resurrection body will be limitless in power. Courtney said this morning that a resurrected body could stand in front of a nuclear explosion and not be affected by it at all. I thought, oh, well that's kind of a metaphor that I don't want to think about too long. it will be infinite in glory. The glory of the Lord Jesus Christ will radiate out of the body we have. You know, we've talked in the men's Bible group about Well, during the millennial kingdom when we're here ruling and reigning with Christ, how are all of those people, the Jews that are in Palestine and Jerusalem, and all the other Gentiles that live on the planet, how are they going to know that you're different from them?

It's because of this body. We will have a resurrected, glorified body. And if one of you is walking someplace and you're visibly seen by them, they'll know who you are, you're a son. Because you'll be glorified, you'll be in that body. And then it'll be eternal in endurance and totally adapted to the spirit. It's gonna be the coolest thing ever.

So as we looked at last week, which I think helps maybe bring some understanding to this, So also it's written, the first man, Adam, became a living soul. The last Adam, who was the Lord Jesus Christ, became a life-giving spirit. The first man, Adam, is from the earth, earthy. The second man, the last Adam, is from heaven. That principle, so few people enter in discussion about. There's an infinite difference between the first and the last Adam. not merely that the first one was a living soul and the last one's a life-giving spirit. God created Adam from the earth, formed the body.

It was natural, it was perfect, it was unmarred, it was totally untested. He did not have the knowledge of good and evil. And in his naive innocence, God put him in the Garden of Eden, which last week we found out was protective custody. Being created perfect, Adam didn't have any problem in obeying his creator.

There was no choice necessary. He didn't have a choice to make. All he had to do was depend upon God. Sounds pretty simple. But being innocent and being created, his place was that of reliance upon God. That's where he was. He was given perfect freedom within the will of his creator. and he was protected by a warning against doing the thing he did, which is making a choice.

Adam could have repelled the temptation, but he chose to submit to it. Isn't it interesting that it's submission that's the issue with him? His resultant fault proved that If nothing else, it proved that man left by himself couldn't stand. He couldn't survive. Through Adam's transgression, the creature assumed strength independent of God. He didn't need to do that, but that's what sin brought in. And therefore, in restoring him, what does God have to do? God has to prove to him and teach him that God is sovereign alone and that all the creature's strength must fail. He's gotta teach you that.

Well, boy, do we resist that. I mean, we're pushing back against that all the time. Christ, who is the last Adam from heaven, and when resurrected, he became a life-giving spirit. We talked about last week that our Lord Jesus Christ is perfect deity and perfect humanity in the same body. He entered into this world and he lived and died and returned to this place of glory, all based on one premise. of the eternal will of the triune God. That was what he was here to do.

The last Adam took the form of a servant and came to do the Father's will, John 4.34. It was all forever settled in heaven before he ever came.

He lived, quote, from Matthew 4.4, by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. He said that over and over again. He said, I don't do anything of myself, ever. I only do what I see my father doing. He did not have to choose, but simply to just abide in his eternal mode of perfect obedience. That's all he had to do, and he did.

So just as we have borne the image of the earthly, the first Adam, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly, the last Adam. What's interesting is that no matter what is done with the Adamic race, it is still forever earthly. It isn't gonna change. If you begin an Adam, you end an Adam.

We, as now in Christ, shall also bear the image of Christ in the day of his coming. As the heavenly one, such also are the heavenly ones. That's who we are. We're believers. We have already borne the image of the earthly. Just look around. We shall bear the image of the heavenly. That's coming.

The last Adam Christ, who's the head of a new race of humans, who'll never be superseded by another race, and never be superseded by another head. He's the last Adam. So, based on the actuality of sonship, through the generating power of the Holy Spirit, it's an unavoidable fact of possession of a son's portion.

I don't like the word portion because we're gonna share. You don't get 140 billionth of God's inheritance. We all get the whole thing together. It's gonna take eternity just to sort of figure out. You talk about reading the will, we'll never stop doing that. The extent of that portion is indicated by Paul when he declares the Spirit himself, the Holy Spirit himself, bears witness to our spirit that we are what?

Children of God. And if children, then heirs. Heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ. That's who we are. The eternal sonship of Christ is in view here into his hairship in which is included all the treasures of the universe, all of them. And not only this one, the one to come. All of the wisdom and the infinity of authority and power and newly constituted sons who we are, we're gonna be heavenly image bearers.

Just to be a joint heir with Christ. So long as a believer is detained in this world as a witness, Little use can be made of those heavenly riches that are, as Peter said, they're held in escrow for us in heaven. Because they belong to a whole nother realm. And when we get to enjoy them, awaits the time of entrance upon the sphere which these riches belong. That's a quote from Lewis Barry Chafer. And then Paul says, behold, I tell you a mystery. You know what a biblical mystery is? It's just something that hasn't been revealed before.

We will not all sleep, and Paul uses the word sleep for believers who have died, physically died. They didn't die in the sense of a non-believer, and we'll talk about that in a second. But we all will be changed. All of us will be changed. So the question is, how and when shall we obtain these spiritual and incorruptible bodies? The line forms outside. No. Paul answers the question by declaring a mystery, one of God's truths that couldn't be known until it was revealed to his people. We learn that all believers will not pass through death.

This truth was unknown in the Old Testament, had never been revealed. And the revelation here, the secret is made known. Even in the Old Testament, like Job and others, Job knew that there was going to be a resurrection, not only of a man in general, but of a saint in particular. He already knew that.

But who could tell of or think that saints being changed without going through death in virtue of the perfect victory of the grace of Christ on the cross. It was reserved for the days of the sun and of the Holy Spirit set down from heaven, when the infinite work was done, whereby souls who were once guilty could be brought into the value and the knowledge of a full redemption. And what a proof this is of the value of the work of Christ on the cross. When the saints that remain alive are changed without dying, or still less, no stop off in purgatory, no process, no judgment for your sins, and not some specialty known place of practical holiness. None of that happens, but all the saints, when waiting for Christ here below, will be changed.

And what's interesting about this is that if you pop over into man's viewpoint, your viewpoint as a man breaks down here. Because the problem is is that what God is intended to do, we can't do. We don't have the power to do it. His power and his merits, it exposes a total inability and demonstration because of the ruin of sin. While it reveals the free and full and triumph grace which saves, even saves your body and the Christian soul through Christ, why? Because of God's glory. Even saints themselves owe little to it.

Even if you know about it as a believer, I think you find it sometimes beyond my thoughts, beyond my understanding. And I just maybe sometimes curtail the extent of the blessings that I have and that you have, almost to the point that they obscure the clarity of them. And once that process starts, what are you doing? You're frittering away the power of God to those who walk by faith.

So are the saints gonna rise? Yeah. But all saints aren't gonna die, as we found out. If you're found alive and remaining at the coming of the Lord, when those that are asleep in Christ shall rise first, then we, the living that remain, I like that, we, maybe we'll make it till then, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds and meet the Lord in the air. And that's gonna happen so fast that you won't even be able to think about it. You know the verse that talks about it's appointed unto men doubtless once to die?

Why are we exempt from that? No, we're not. You know why? Because we did die already. We already died. Oh, when Christ died on the cross, we died with him. We were buried with him. We were resurrected with him. If you look at Romans chapter six, verse two and three, Paul says, may it never be, how shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ, placed in, never to be taken out, have been baptized into his death? When he died, so did I. So Paul can legitimately say, Believers sleep, they don't die. Why? Because they already have. They already have. Well, just like I told my buddy, I said, well, I don't remember that happening. He said, you will someday. So what do we do?

We look to the Lord Jesus from heaven, who's our savior. William Kelly says, who shall change our body of humiliation into that that it may be fashioned like unto the body of his glory. In this we groan, in this body we groan, earnestly desiring to be closed upon with our new house, our new body, which is from heaven. The earthly house of the tabernacle we have now is wholly unmet for the glory of God. We need, therefore, a building or a body from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. which we shall have at Christ's coming. The only problem is is that we've gotta wait for the change.

Then he says, in the moment's notice, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet, for the trumpet will sound and the dead will be raised imperishable and we will be changed. The redemption of the saint's body will be from every spot on the globe, just like that. sooner than the mind can think or your eye be able to observe. When the final summons is given to the heavenly host who is us, excuse me, then we get to quit the planet. We get to leave. The Old Testament saints knew nothing of this great secret that the natural bodies of the living saints would be changed into spiritual bodies without the saints going through death.

What a proof of the mighty efficacy of the death of Christ, which has so entirely meant the penalty of death for the believer that it is possible for him to be changed into the image of the heavenly without having to die to do it. This great change will take place at the twinkling of an eye, as he says here, at the last trump. The trump will sound, and the dead shall be raised. It shall sound however little man may expect it, and the dead will be raised incorruptible and changed.

What's interesting, I spent some time, so I looked up this idea of trumpets. In the Roman military, they had three trumpet sounds. The first one was, get everybody awake in the camp. First trumpet sound. The second one was, tear the camp down and get ready to move. The last one was, march off. That's what we're waiting for, is that last trumpet. March off. We get to leave.

Because this perishable body must put on imperishability. And this mortal body must put on immortality. When we talk about the phrase flesh and blood, we're really talking about a mortal body, a living body in particular. It's impossible for us in this present physical form to enter into as any inheritance the heavenly place where the kingdom of God is that Christ said he had left and gone to prepare a place for us. Paul expresses this truth with perfect precision. He doesn't speak of those corrupting in the grave, or even the dead or the dying, but of corruptible or mortal. So, taking the body even while we're alive, and so an object for the change and for resurrection. You see, the kingdom of God can have no part with death. or dying or its presence or its product from Chester McCauley.

When this perishable will have put on imperishable and this mortal will have put on immortality, then will come about the saying as it is written, death is swallowed up in victory. The time of change is coming for the Lord from heaven And when the dead in Christ shall rise and we shall be alive, be changed and caught up, we then shall, the transformation and the fulfillment of this is a prophecy from Isaiah 25, eight. He said, he will swallow up death for all time. God will demonstrate his overcoming of death. It's evident to the prophet that this must be at the end of the age, not the end of the world. That then the earth's blessings will begin. They won't be passing away, that's when they start.

Swallow up, this word swallow up means to gulp. Like the big gulp at 7-Eleven. The metaphor is appropriate because there's nothing quite as consuming as death, and to swallow it up and to gulp it down, that's the metaphor. In view of this mighty trumpet, the power of death, triumph, this power of death, we can well say, as Isaiah did, death is swallowed up in victory.

How mighty. the power that from every spot on earth, where through long, long ages, there has been resting in the dust of saints, William Kelly called us the dusty ones, who have fallen asleep, whether they were murdered, martyred, or naturally decay, will rise the dead, and together with every living saint, will change them into the image of the heavenly, and this in a moment of time, sooner than we can reckon it and faster than we can see it.

Oh death, where is your victory? Oh death, where is your sting? I think it's no wonder Paul quotes, this is a quote from Hosea 13, 14, where he said, shall I ransom them from the power of Sheol? Shall I redeem them from death? O death, where are your thorns? O shield, where is your sting? Compassion will be hidden from my sight. Hosea 13, 14. So I think Paul modified this a little bit so that he could show there's a defiant challenge from Hosea. And he uses this passage to taunt death itself. He's like he's in death's face. Death is our last and greatest enemy.

Looking back over the long and sad history of the fallen world, we see that the shadow of death is over everything. Yet we know that God will defeat it when he raises his people to life. Death has lost its sting and the grave has lost its victory. All is going to change by God's grace, which in the end will bring in his triumph. Death to the believer who must go through it is really only leaving that which is mortal and no longer bears the terror of God's judgment to that and that power of Satan to what is immortal. All that death can do to us is to take us out of the scene in which it exercises its power over us and put us in a scene into which it doesn't have any power at all. A place where we have been positioned since the day of creation. So looking on to this great event to come, Paul can say, oh my, death, where is your victory? This isn't a question that he's waiting for an answer. He's right up in death's face saying where's your victory? Where's your sting?

These verses comfort our comfort to men and women of faith and Patience who wait for the fulfillment of it Now, interesting verses to close up. The sting of death is sin. And the power of sin is the law. What an answer this is to the resurrection and the change of the saints. It is sin which gives not only occasion but the sting to death. It was sin that sharpens the sting and puts venom in it. The law, however, righteous of itself, couldn't work any deliverance for the guilty person. It didn't have the power to do that. Instead, the law provides, in effect, the strength of sin.

How does it do that? It does it by provoking the rebellious sin nature to the point where it will rise up against God's commands. We've talked a lot here about put a two-year-old in front of a glass of water on a table and say, don't touch the water. What's he gonna do? He's gonna reach out and touch it.

That's the strength of sin, the law. It was the law which, presenting to the conscience exact righteousness from God, and the judgment of God which required the accomplishment of that law, pronounced a curse on those who failed it. That's pretty strong, but that's really true. If you want to be under law, you have to understand, okay, what I'm doing is I'm taking on the thing that's gonna give me the strength to sin. It was the law which gave sin its force to the conscience and made death doubly formidable. It's grace, not law, which is the strength of holiness.

As we learn from Romans 6.14, one of the great verses in the Bible, sin shall not have dominion over you. Why? No master over you, for you're not under law, You're under grace. So the whole idea of grace was to keep sin from having dominion over you. We always thought you just tell me what to do and we'll do it, give me the laws and everything's cool.

But we find out that the law is the strength of sin and then this thing grace comes in. And the definition we like the best is the one from Chester McCauley where he says, grace is the unlimited and unmerited blessings from God. You can't merit them, and they're unlimited, and they're all based on the adequate work of Christ on the cross. You live under grace, sin will lose its power. So it's his grace, not law, which is the strength of holiness.

And therefore, Paul here breaks forth with thanksgiving in his heart, giving us the victory so completely and so completely in the Lord Jesus Christ that he yells, but thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through the Lord Jesus Christ. God gives us the victory through Christ alone, grace. The one who bore the sting when he was made sin on the cross and redeemed us from the curse of the law by being made a curse for us. With the blessedness of this truth, Paul can say, thanks be to God. If you just look, there's the word in the middle there that says, who gives us the victory. The word gives is interesting.

I was looking at it and it's in the present tense. And you would think, well, present tense means it's going on, it's going on, it's going on. But if you look at it, as something that didn't occur in the past, isn't gonna occur in the future, but is so certain that it may be regarded as presently ours right now. The present tense also indicates that the program is already in progress right now.

The victory and the thanks are in progress right now. So think about this. Instead of fearing death, we render thanks to Christ, who has given us the victory in Christ Jesus. The great result is that the Lord Jesus Christ, and like Jesus, we're able to see him as he is.

J.B. Stoney, who's one of my favorite authors, wrote, we are not according to our Father's pleasure, nor are we in simple restfulness as to our acceptance if we do not enter by faith into the new position to which He in His grace has placed us. A further fact is that we have no place but that.

And when we get even a glimpse of it, It alters immensely this place, the earth, this world through which we are passing. All things in it appear in another color altogether. So the last verse of chapter 15, he says, therefore, my beloved, you know, my favorite question is always what's the therefore, therefore? Therefore it means everything that's gone before, all of this incredible information, all of this wonderful information I've given to you, here's how you respond to it.

Be steadfast, be immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain. to an account of the mighty victory of Christ that he gained by his death and witnessed by his resurrection. Let us be firm in maintaining the truth. Let us be unmoved by any attacks from any place from the enemy. Let us abound always in the work of the Lord. knowing that any toil or suffering will have a glorious answer and won't be in vain. The victory that is being given to us now is an incredibly powerful motivation.

Meanwhile, as we labor in this scene where death exercises its power, and Satan uses it, if God allows him, to stop us in our way. We labor, although there are difficulties, with entire confidence, knowing what the infallible result will be. It's really good to read the last chapter and know what's gonna happen. The path may be beset by the enemy. The end will be the fruit of the counsels and the power of God. exercise on our behalf according to what we have already seen in the Lord Jesus, who is the head and the manifestation of the glory which we will soon enjoy. So let's close.

Dear Father, how thankful we are to the grace that you provide to us every single day, that we may continue to grow in the knowledge and grace of your dear son, day by day, moment by moment, all the time, and rest in that provision. We thank you, we pray in your son's precious name, amen.